"De divino furore": the divine Rapture and the Neoplatonic mystic. The poet as "priscus theologus" in the thought of Marsilio Ficino

Abstract

Humanism and philosophy in the Renaissance recover the ideal of poetic theology [theologia poetica] a knowledge where essential truths of mystic-religious nature were hidden under an allegorical veil. The poet is, then, a theologian philosopher, essential part of an ancient tradition that served the ends of true faith. In this sense, the restoration of the privileged place of poetics by the classical humanists was functional to the philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, a Florentine neoplatonist of the fifteenth century, who will recognize in the figure of Orfeo the theologian poet by excellence. According to Ficino, the works of the poets reveal the divinity allegorically, in the form of a poetic theology, thus opening the possibility of an ontological revelation of prophetic character. The objective of the article is to examine the role of the divine furor in the thought of Marsilio Ficino regarding the mystical experience and the conception of “poetic theology”.